2009 International Conference on Energy and Environment Technology

Analysis of the Factors Affecting Secondary Arc Current on UHV Transmission

Lines

Yu Liu and Jun Wen

Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
North China Electric Power University
Beijing, China
779829226@qq.com

AbstractThe influence of the secondary arc on the power

system is more and more serious with the rise of voltage levels.
If the secondary arc can not be extinguished promptly, the
single-phase auto-reclosing will fail. In order to reduce the
secondary arc extinction time, there by ensuring the success of
the single-phase auto-reclosing, Jindongnan-Nanyang-Jingmen
UHV AC demonstration project is used as an example. This
paper analyses the factors affecting the secondary arc current
using PSCAD/EMTDC. The simulation results are coincident
with the theoretical analysis. The conclusions drawn from this
paper will be excellent references to the future UHV (ultra
high voltage) projects.
Keywords-Secondary arc current; Transmission line;
Secondary arcCoupling; UHV
I. INTRODUCTION
According to the statistics, more than ninety percent of
transmission line faults are single phase grounding faults.
Most single-phase grounding faults are temporary, which can
be switched off by single-phase auto-reclosing [1].With the
voltage levels improving, the influence of the secondary arc
on the system is more and more serious. If the secondary arc
can not be extinguished promptly, the single-phase auto-
reclosing will be a failure. It poses a grave threat to the
power supply security and the system stability. In the range
of 1000kV transmission lines, the voltage is higher, the line
is longer, the capacity is larger, which makes the secondary
arc burn longer and brings difficulties to the single-phase
auto-reclosing [2]. Thus, it is necessary to study the factors
affecting the secondary arc in the UHV field, providing
theoretical basis for the selection methods of suppressing the
secondary arc.
II. SECONDARY ARC PARAMETERS OF TRANSMISSION
LINE
When a single phase grounding fault occurs on the ultra-
high voltage (UHV) transmission line, the short circuit
current is cut off after the action of protection. At this point,
there is still power flowing on the two sound lines. The two
sound phases will provide secondary arc current to the fault
point through the inter-phase electrostatic coupling
(capacitive coupling) and the electromagnetic coupling
(mutual inductance coupling) [3], as shown in Fig. 1.
Figure 1. The mechanism of the secondary arc current
A. Electrostatic induction component
Electrostatic induction component is the horizontal
component of the secondary arc current. It is capacitive
current that two full phases voltage provides the fault points
with the capacitive current through the capacitance between
phases. The electrostatic induction component Isc is given by
. .
I sc = j C12 l U (1)
Where C12 is the capacitance of per length between
phases; l is the length of the transmission line; U is the phase
voltage Root-Mean-Square [4].
From the equation (1), we can see that for a fixed length
of transmission line, the value of Isc will remain basically
unchanged, and has nothing to do with the location of the
fault point. Isc is concerned with the line capacitance
parameters, namely, related to the structure of the
transmission lines (phase spacing, number of sub-conductors
in a bundle and line transposed, etc.) and the length.
B. Electromagnetic induction component
Electromagnetic induction component is the vertical
component of the secondary arc current. It is electromotive
force that is determined by the load current of the sound
phase through the inter-phase mutual inductance at the fault
point.
EM = M (I B + IC ) (2)
Under the influence of the electromotive force EM, it
forms a loop between the fault point and the inter-phase
capacitance.
Isl = E M / j ( L 1 / C n ) (3)

978-0-7695-3819-8/09 $26.00 2009 IEEE 69

DOI 10.1109/ICEET.2009.253
 Where M is the mutual inductance between phases; L I p
is the self-induction. Tp = (7)
It is can be seen from Eq.(2) to Eq.(3), the lp
electromagnetic induction component not only has
Where the coefficient is about 2.85105, Ip is the peak
relations to the line parameters M, L and C0, but also to
value of primary arc current.
the load current (or the transmitted power) and the fault
location. The dynamic characteristics of secondary arc current
(SAC) can be exactly expressed as
The secondary arc current Is is the vector sum of the
electrostatic induction component Isc and the g s 1
electromagnetic induction component Isl. It can be = (G s g s ) (8)
expressed as t Ts

Is = Isc + Isl (4) i

III. MODELING AND SIMULATIONS
A. Modeling of Arc
The secondary arc (SA) is sustained by mutual
electrostatic and electro-magnetic couplings between the
healthy phases and the faulted phase [5] [6]. It is highly
complex, and is influenced by a number of factors, such as
velocity of wind, humidity. The SA extinguishes after every
zero crossing of the current. The SA restrikes, if the
recovery voltage crosses the dielectric recovery
characteristic of the secondary arc. As the effect of the arc,
it is difficult to determine the nature of faults and the
reclosing time of the single-phase auto-reclosing. So it is
extremely important for single-phase auto-reclosing to
determine the arc extinction time, the key to which is the
accurate arc model.
In the study of the SA simulation, the fault arc is usually
considered as a fixed resistance or a linear piecewise
resistance. However, the arc resistance in fact is nonlinear.
At present, an acknowledged and realistic arc model goes as
follows [7] [8]:
The primary dynamic arc characteristics can be exactly
simulated by the following arc equations
g p 1 project is the first UHV project in China, which is used as an
= (Gp g p ) (5)
t Tp
Where gp is the time-varying primary arc conductance,
Gp is the primary arc stationary conductance, which can be
evaluated by
In which Gs = (9)
u s Ls ( t r )
Is1.4
Ts = (10)
Ls ( tr )
us = 75 / I s1.4 (11)
Where gs is the time-varying SA conductance, Gs is the
SA stationary conductance, Ts is time constant, Ls the is SA
length, Is is the peak value of secondary arc current, is the
proportional coefficient, us is the SA voltage in per unit
length, tr is the duration time of SA.
In practice, the secondary arc extinction time depends
also on the rate of rise of the arc path length which, in turn,
is heavily dependent upon many factors such as the wind
velocity.
The arc model is largely empirical, and was obtained by
fitting mathematical equations to experimental data [9]. It
can reproduce the actual arc process better. The simulation
data used the arc model are coincident with the measured
values.
B. System used for the study
Jindongnan-Nanyang-Jingmen UHV AC demonstration
example in this paper. The UHV rated voltage is 1000 kV,
and the highest running voltage is 1100kV. The system is
equipped with shunt reactor (SR) banks of 960Mvar at the
sending end of the line, 2*720Mvar at the middle of the line
and 600Mvar at the receiving end, as shown in Fig. 2.

i
Gp = (6)
u plp

Where i is the arc current, lp is the primary arc length, up

is primary arc voltage drop per-unit length, which is nearly
constant and is about 15 V/cm for the range of current from
1.4 to 24 kA. The time constant Tp for the arc current Ip can Figure 2. UHV transmission system
be expressed as

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 IV. SIMULATION RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
The factors affecting secondary arc mainly divided into
three categories: (a) Environmental factors, such as wind
force and velocity, air temperature, humidity and so on; (b)
Line structure, such as circuit transposition and circuit
compensation methods; (c) System factors, such as the
operation voltage, the grid structure. The most important
factors are the line structure, the operation voltage and the
circuit compensation.
C. Power flow
The line transmission modes include: the light-load, the
rated- load and the heavy- load, corresponding to transfer
30%, 100% and 130% of rated power. The rated
transmission power is 2800MW. The simulation results of
single-phase earth fault are shown in Fig. 3.
30
25

20
This paper sets up a simulation model to analyze the

Arc current/A
impact of arc current in a variety of factors, according to 15

/A
+HDY\ORDG

Iarc
Eq.(5)~Eq.(11) and the system parameters using the 10 5DWHGORDG

electromagnetic simulation softwarePSCAD/EMTDC. 5 /LJKWORDG

0
A. Geometric configuration of the transmission line system 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
d/km
In the rated operating conditions, the conductor
arrangement is changed from the level to the triangular, the Figure 3. Arc current the power flow
arc current and the arc extinction time is shown in Tab.,
using the sending end of the Jindongnan - Nanyang line It can be seen from fig. 3 that, for any location of the
above as an example. circuit, the arc current has an increasing trend with the
increase of the transmission capacity.
TABLE I. ARC CURRENT LINE GEOMETRIC CONFIGURATION
D. The number of sub-conductors in a bundle
Line Geometric Triangle Level In the rated operating conditions, the simulation results
about arc current are shown in Fig. 4, taking the sending end
Secondary Arc Current /A 18.95 10.37
of the Jindongnan - Nanyang line for example.
Arc Extinction Time /s 0.231 0.117
The results show that: the value of the secondary arc 45
current in the level mode is about 45% smaller than the 40
triangle mode. The arc extinction time changes 35
correspondingly.
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30
Iarc /A

25
B. Conductor transposition 20
Conductor transposition or not transposition has a great 15
influence on the electrical parameters, which affects the 10
5
value of the secondary arc current (Isac), as shown in Tab.
0
TABLE II. ARC CURRENT CONDUCTOR TRANSPOSITION
5 6 7 8 9 10
1XPEHURIEXQGOHFRQGXFWRU
Sending end Midpoint Receiving end
Fault location Figure 4. Arc current number of bundle conductors
Isac/A t/s Isac/A t/s Isac/A t/s

Ideally transposed 18.95 0.23 10.33 0.16 4.3 0.12 The results show that under the same operating
conditions, if the equivalent areas of the conductors are not
Not transposed 23.77 0.49 12.31 0.33 5.4 0.23 changed, the more sub-conductors in a bundle, the higher
arc current is.
The results show that, for the triangular mode, the arc
current value of not transposed conductors increases about E. The height of the conductors to ground
19% to 25% than ideally transposed. In the rated operating conditions, when the height of the
conductors changed, the results of the arc current are shown
It can be seen from the Tab.and Tab., when the
in Fig. 5.
transmission line adopts the level mode and ideally The simulation results show that the higher the average
transposed, the arc current has a minimum value. Contrarily, distance of the line, the greater the arc current is. When the
when the transmission line adopts the triangular mode and distance increased form 40m to 20m, the arc current
not transposed, the arc current has the greatest value. increased from 13.37A to 62.22A, accordingly, the arc
extinction time increased from 0.174s to 0.820s. It can be
seen that the height of line-to-ground has a great impact on
the arc current value.

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 60 Increase or decrease the bundle spacing, the arc current will
55
50
increase, but not obviously.
45
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40
V. OTHER FACTORS
Iarc /A

35
30 Other factors, such as the wind speed and wind direction,
25
20
also have a great influence on the secondary arc extinction
15 [10]. The secondary arc is a free growing arc in the
10 atmosphere conditions. Thermal convection is a major
20 25 30
H/m
35 40
factor in the arc self-extinguishing. Therefore, the wind
speed is the most important factor. The influence of wind
Figure 5. Arc current the height of the conductors direction is determined by the direction arc road .If the wind
direction is the same as the direction of electric power, the
F. Phase spacing arc extinguishes quickly; If the wind direction has a
opposite direction to the electric power, even if the arc
When the single-phase ground fault occurs at the current is not high, the arc extinction time will be long .
sending end of the Jindongnan- Nanyang transmission line,
the secondary arc current sensibility to the phase spacing is
shown in Fig. 6 below. VI. CONCLUSIONS
120
This paper analyses the factors affecting the secondary
arc extinction, such as the geometric configuration of the
100
transmission line, the conductor transposition, the power
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80
flow, the number of bundle conductors, the height of the
Iarc /A

60
conductors to the ground, the phase spacing, the bundle
40 spacing, the wind speed and the wind direction. The
20 simulation results are coincident with the theoretical
0 analysis.
12 14 16 18 20 22 24
3KDVHVSDFLQJP
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40
Autoreclosure, IEE Proc, Pt. C. Vol.129, No. 2, 1982.
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30 Power University, 2007.

Iarc /A

[7] Y. H. Song, R. K, Aggarwal, A. T. Johns, Modeling of Permanent

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15
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Figure 7. Arc current bundle spacing
Secondary Arc Current in High Voltage Transmission Line, Nanning:
Guangxi University, 2006.
Data and curves show that: when the bundle spacing is
33.60mm, the arc current has the minimum value, 18.95A.

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